To the slave families of Jackson, Riley, Starks, Gant, Ceeney, Bowie, Buie, Ellis, Smith, and to those people whose names that have been forgotten to history our gratitude for your sacrifice of enduring the peculiar institution called “slavery.” Your sacrifice of surviving the chains of slavery, the disappointment and the failure of reconstruction, the Jim Crow laws, the disenfranchisement especially the right to vote, the Klan and all its evil, the indignities of second class citizenship, and finally, the realization of full freedom for every man and woman we dedicate this book. From the first known generation of Nace and Ellen Riley, both born in 1799 in Kentucky, to the current generation this family has shown their strengths,